Tag Archives: 1996

50 Years of Hip Hop Album Review: The Score, Reasonable Doubt

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2023 was the 50th anniversary of hip hop, and in honor of this anniversary, in 2024 the idea bloomed in my that I should review the top 50 albums of that 50 years. As I crunched together a list from various sources, 50 proved to be too restrictive- many of the classics were getting squeezed out. So, to make a little more room, I opted for 100 albums, two for each of hip hop’s 50 years. Due to some medical situations, I took a several months long hiatus from blogging that year, so I didn’t finish the series. It’s now 2026, whole new medical situation and still proceeding fitfully, but I won’t stop if you don’t!

For its formative years, hip hop was a live entertainment form, with the first recorded singles not emerging until 1979, and the first albums in 1980. So my review covers 1980-2023, with 50 posts of two albums each. The only ground rule I made for myself (besides looking for 2×50, aka 100, albums that were widely well-regarded) was that I had to have at least one from each year. As you’ll see by and by, some years get multiple albums, but since we have 100 spots for 43 years, it tends to all work out.

And with that, let’s embark on our next installment!

Fugees, The Score (1996)– First of all, I was shocked when I read up on this album to realize that the Fugees only made two albums. They’re definitely an example of a group whose quality and legacy of work exceeds its output! Listening to it, I appreciated how much is coming together here. There’s the sophistication East Cast hip hop production had reached at that time, the feeling for street-level reality of gangster rap, the social and political critique and vision of something better of conscious hip hop, the cinematic flair of the Wu-Tang clan, and the smooth groove of neo-soul. Which is not to say the Fugees, or this album, are in way following or derivative. Instead, they reached out and grasped multiple threads that were in the air, and tied them together in a free and flowing way while making central points of view that had often been overlooked- refugees, women. The album that resulted deserves every bit of the critical and popular acclaim it received at the time and retains to this day.

Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt (1996)- I’m a big fan of Jay-Z’s later work, he is, in my opinion, a unique talent who created some of the best music of the 00s. So I was looking forward to listening to this, his first album, with curiosity. It feels a little rough to me, in the sense that it takes a few tracks to get going, and is loaded with guests who don’t always seem to support the artist and the album. But when it does hit, the swagger, the vulnerability, the musical and vocal flow, the wordplay all shows that his talent was there from the very first. And in fact, it’s a bit of a peculiar “first”, in the sense that he’d been part of the New York City hip hop scene for several years up to the point at which he decided that he wasn’t going to wait anymore to get signed and promoted, instead founding Roc-A-Fella records and recording and releasing his debut himself. It performed well but not amazingly, but it was his foot in the door, and here he is a whole billionaire music mogul later. I can’t quite get behind the many who consider it his best album (we’ll get there later in this list), but you can definitely feel the drive and hear the promise right from this start.

If you’re curious about the sources I used to compile my list, you can check them out here:

And if you want to catch up on the previous installments, here they are…

  1. Sugarhill Gang- Sugarhill Gang (1980)/Kurtis Blow- Kurtis Blow (1980)
  2. Sugarhill Gang- 8th Wonder (1981)/Grandmaster Flash- The Message (1982)
  3. Wild Style Original Soundtrack (1983)/Fat Boys- Fat Boys (1984)
  4. Kurtis Blow- Ego Trip (1984)/Run-D.M.C.- Run-D.M.C. (1984)
  5. Whodini- Escape (1985)/The Treacherous Three- The Treacherous Three (1985)
  6. Run-D.M.C.- King of Rock (1985)/LL Cool J- Radio (1985)
  7. Beastie Boys- Licensed to Ill (1986)/Run-D.M.C.- Raising Hell (1986)
  8. Boogie Down Productions- Criminal Minded (1987)/Eric B. & Rakim- Paid in Full (1987)
  9. LL Cool J- Bigger and Deffer (1987)/Big Daddy Kane- Long Live the Kane (1988)
  10. Boogie Down Productions- By All Means Necessary (1988)/EPMD- Strictly Business (1988)
  11. Eric B. & Rakim- Follow the Leader (1988)/Jungle Brothers- Straight Out the Jungle (1988)
  12. N.W.A- Straight Outta Compton (1988)/Public Enemy- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back (1988)
  13. Slick Rick- The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988)/Ultramagnetic MCs- Critical Beatdown (1988)
  14. Beastie Boys- Paul’s Boutique (1989)/Big Daddy Kane- It’s a Big Daddy Thing (1989)
  15. De La Soul- 3 Feet High and Rising (1989)/EPMD- Unfinished Business (1989)
  16. Geto Boys- Grip It! On That Other Level (1989)/Kool G Rap & DJ Polo- Road To The Riches (1989)
  17. The D.O.C.- No One Can Do It Better (1989)/Ice Cube- AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990)
  18. A Tribe Called Quest- The Low End Theory (1991)/Ice Cube- Death Certificate (1991)
  19. Dr. Dre- The Chronic (1992)/Pete Rock and CL Smooth- Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992)
  20. The Pharcyde- Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992)/A Tribe Called Quest- Midnight Marauders (1993)
  21. Snoop Doggy Dogg- Doggystyle (1993)/Wu-Tang Clan- Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
  22. Nas- Illmatic (1994)/Scarface- The Diary (1994)
  23. The Notorious B.I.G.- Ready to Die (1994)/2Pac- Me Against the World (1995)
  24. Bone Thugs-n-Narmony–E. Eternal 1999 (1995)/GZA-Liquid Swords (1995)
  25. Mobb Deep- The Infamous (1995)/Raekwon- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1995)
  26. 2Pac- All Eyez on Me (1996)/DJ Shadow- Endtroducing… (1996)

Finally, if you’d like a playlist for the entire list, you can find that here. Listen to it sequentially for the historical development of the genre, or play on shuffle for maximum historical scramble!

50 Years of Hip Hop Album Review: All Eyez on Me, Endtroducing…

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2023 was the 50th anniversary of hip hop, and in honor of this anniversary, in 2024 the idea bloomed in my that I should review the top 50 albums of that 50 years. As I crunched together a list from various sources, 50 proved to be too restrictive- many of the classics were getting squeezed out. So, to make a little more room, I opted for 100 albums, two for each of hip hop’s 50 years. Due to some medical situations, I took a several months long hiatus from blogging that year, so I didn’t finish the series. It’s now 2026, whole new medical situation and still proceeding fitfully, but I won’t stop if you don’t!

For its formative years, hip hop was a live entertainment form, with the first recorded singles not emerging until 1979, and the first albums in 1980. So my review covers 1980-2023, with 50 posts of two albums each. The only ground rule I made for myself (besides looking for 2×50, aka 100, albums that were widely well-regarded) was that I had to have at least one from each year. As you’ll see by and by, some years get multiple albums, but since we have 100 spots for 43 years, it tends to all work out.

And with that, let’s embark on our next installment!

2Pac, All Eyez on Me (1996)– I won’t lie, my first reaction on seeing this was a double album with over a two-hour run time was, “There can’t possibly be any call for that.” Between that and my impression from a few reviews ago that Me Against the World was a little scattered, I definitely came in skeptical. The energy, flow and rich production of the first track immediately began to disabuse me of that notion, and it built from there track by track. When I read up on the album’s production, the factors that make it so focused and powerful became apparent- unlike his previous albums, Tupac executive produced this himself, on individual tracks he pulled in an all star team of producers, and West Coast hip hop powerhouse DJ Quik mixed the final product. On top of that, Death Row records bailed Tupac out of prison specifically to make it, and he poured every inch of his talent and feelings into it as if it were his last chance to say something. Which in a way it was, as he was killed seven months after it came out. It dives deep into gangster themes and personas, and is punctuated throughout by his nihilistic laugh and a dark angry edge, but it never feels caricatured, and the squelchy synth-laden production is peerless. All in all it adds up to a strong and unsettling de facto last will and testament.

DJ Shadow, Endtroducing (1996)- This edition may have the most mismatched album pairing we’ve done yet. Then again, there may be a connection, as these two albums represent two entirely different school of hip hop, both of which were tremendously influential on the rest of the decade. The Entroducing version hearkens back to the early days of vinyl mixmasters, and reaches out to the electronic music genres of the nineties. DJ Shadow isn’t necessarily my favorite from the Bay Area turntabulism scene of that era, that would probably be Mixmaster Mike, who was the de-facto DJ for the Beastie Boys for several albums, or Lyrics Born, who was in one of my top album lists as recently as 2022 (and who, by the way, appears on the cover of this album, flipping through the vinyl). That being said, there is no denying his excellence, or this album’s. He produced it on next to nothing and with almost everything- only using a turntable, MPC sampler, and multi-track recorder, but composing it entirely out of dozens of vinyl-record samples from a dizzying array of genres. And if you’ve listened to entire subgenres of hip hop and electronic music, and/or attended certain formats of DJ night over the thirty (!) years since this came out, you’ve heard the ongoing influence of what he does here.

If you’re curious about the sources I used to compile my list, you can check them out here:

And if you want to catch up on the previous installments, here they are…

  1. Sugarhill Gang- Sugarhill Gang (1980)/Kurtis Blow- Kurtis Blow (1980)
  2. Sugarhill Gang- 8th Wonder (1981)/Grandmaster Flash- The Message (1982)
  3. Wild Style Original Soundtrack (1983)/Fat Boys- Fat Boys (1984)
  4. Kurtis Blow- Ego Trip (1984)/Run-D.M.C.- Run-D.M.C. (1984)
  5. Whodini- Escape (1985)/The Treacherous Three- The Treacherous Three (1985)
  6. Run-D.M.C.- King of Rock (1985)/LL Cool J- Radio (1985)
  7. Beastie Boys- Licensed to Ill (1986)/Run-D.M.C.- Raising Hell (1986)
  8. Boogie Down Productions- Criminal Minded (1987)/Eric B. & Rakim- Paid in Full (1987)
  9. LL Cool J- Bigger and Deffer (1987)/Big Daddy Kane- Long Live the Kane (1988)
  10. Boogie Down Productions- By All Means Necessary (1988)/EPMD- Strictly Business (1988)
  11. Eric B. & Rakim- Follow the Leader (1988)/Jungle Brothers- Straight Out the Jungle (1988)
  12. N.W.A- Straight Outta Compton (1988)/Public Enemy- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back (1988)
  13. Slick Rick- The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988)/Ultramagnetic MCs- Critical Beatdown (1988)
  14. Beastie Boys- Paul’s Boutique (1989)/Big Daddy Kane- It’s a Big Daddy Thing (1989)
  15. De La Soul- 3 Feet High and Rising (1989)/EPMD- Unfinished Business (1989)
  16. Geto Boys- Grip It! On That Other Level (1989)/Kool G Rap & DJ Polo- Road To The Riches (1989)
  17. The D.O.C.- No One Can Do It Better (1989)/Ice Cube- AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990)
  18. A Tribe Called Quest- The Low End Theory (1991)/Ice Cube- Death Certificate (1991)
  19. Dr. Dre- The Chronic (1992)/Pete Rock and CL Smooth- Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992)
  20. The Pharcyde- Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992)/A Tribe Called Quest- Midnight Marauders (1993)
  21. Snoop Doggy Dogg- Doggystyle (1993)/Wu-Tang Clan- Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
  22. Nas- Illmatic (1994)/Scarface- The Diary (1994)
  23. The Notorious B.I.G.- Ready to Die (1994)/2Pac- Me Against the World (1995)
  24. Bone Thugs-n-Narmony–E. Eternal 1999 (1995)/GZA-Liquid Swords (1995)
  25. Mobb Deep- The Infamous (1995)/Raekwon- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1995)

Finally, if you’d like a playlist for the entire list, you can find that here. Listen to it sequentially for the historical development of the genre, or play on shuffle for maximum historical scramble!